Nightwatch

Semyon flattened out in the air, as if he'd hit a wall of glass, and slid down an invisible barrier, shifting into the twilight as he went. Bear was flung off to one side—and he was far more massive. The bullet, crawling toward the vampire with all the grace of a dragonfly, flared up in a bright petal of flame and disappeared.

If it wasn't for the way the vampire's eyes were slowly opening wider and wider, I might have thought she'd conjured up the protective shield herself… But that's something only the most powerful magicians can do…

«They are under my protection…« a voice said behind my back.

I swung around—and met Zabulon's gaze.

It was amazing that the vampire didn't panic. It was amazing she didn't kill Egor. The unsuccessful attack and the sudden appearance of the Dark Magician must have been much more of a surprise to her than to us, because I'd been half-expecting something from the moment I took off the amulet.

I wasn't surprised he'd gotten there so fast. The Dark Ones have their own pathways. But why had Zabulon, the observer from the Dark Side, preferred this little tussle to staying in our headquarters? Had he lost interest in Svetlana and the vortex hanging over her head? Did he know something that we didn't?

That damned habit of trying to calculate everything in advance! The field operatives had it beaten out of them by the very nature of their work. Their work was all instant response to danger, battle, victory, or defeat.

Ilya had taken out his magic wand. Its pale-lilac glow was too bright for a third-grade magician and too steady for me to believe he could have charged it. The boss had probably charged it himself.

So he must have been expecting something?

He must have been expecting someone to turn up with powers that matched his own?

Neither Tiger Cub nor Bear changed their form. Their magic didn't require any external devices, and certainly not human bodies. Bear kept his eyes fixed on the vampire, totally ignoring Zabulon. Tiger Cub stood beside me. Semyon walked slowly around the vampire, rubbing his waist and deliberately making sure she saw him. He left the Dark Magician to us too.

«They?» Tiger Cub growled.

It took me a moment to realize what was bothering her.

«They are under my protection,» Zabulon repeated. The magician was wrapped in a shapeless black coat, and his head was covered with a crumpled black beret of dark fur. He had his hands in his pockets, but somehow I was certain there was nothing there, no amulets, no pistols.

«Who are you?» screeched the girl-vampire. «Who are you?»

«Your protector and mentor,» said Zabulon, looking at me. Not even straight at me, more a casual glance past me. «Your master.»

Had he gone insane? The girl-vampire had no idea of the balance of forces here. She was wound up, ready to blow. She had been prepared to die… to end her existence. Now she suddenly had a chance to survive, but the way he spoke…

«I have no masters!» The girl whose life depended on other peoples' death laughed. «Whoever you are—from the Light, or from the Darkness—remember that! I have no masters and never will!»

She began backing away toward the edge of the roof, dragging Egor after her. Still clutching him with one arm, holding the other hand at his throat. A hostage… a good move against the forces of Light.

And maybe against the forces of Darkness too?

«Zabulon, we accept,» I said, laying my hand on the tense muscles of Tiger Cub's back. «She is yours. Take her—until the trial. We honor the Treaty.»

«I am taking them ,» said Zabulon, gazing forward blindly. The wind was lashing into his face, but the magician's unblinking eyes remained wide open, as if they were made of glass. «The woman and the boy are ours.»

«No. Only the vampire.»

He finally deigned to look at me.

«Agent of the Light, I am only taking what is mine. I honor the Great Treaty. The woman and the boy are ours.»

«You are stronger than any of us,» I said, «but you are alone, Zabulon.»

The Dark Magician shook his head and smiled in mournful sympathy.

«No, Anton Gorodetsky.»

They came out from behind the lift shaft, a young man and young woman. I knew them. Oh yes, I knew them.

Alisa and Pyotr. The witch and the warlock from Day Watch.

«Egor!» Zabulon said in a quiet voice. «Have you understood the difference between us? Which side do you prefer?»

The boy didn't answer. But perhaps only because the vampire's claws were pressed against his neck.

«Have we got a problem here?» Tiger Cub asked in a purring voice.

«Uh-huh,» I confirmed.

«Your decision?» asked Zabulon. His Watch agents weren't saying anything as yet, keeping out of things…

«I don't like this,» said Tiger Cub. She edged a little closer to Zabulon, and her tail lashed me mercilessly across one knee. «I don't like the Day Watch's view of what's going on here… not one little bit.»

Bear obviously shared her opinion: When they worked as a pair, one of them spoke for both. I looked at Ilya: He was twirling the wand in his fingers, smiling darkly as if he were thinking. Like a child who's brought a loaded Uzi to a party instead of a plastic machine gun. Semyon was obviously up for anything. He didn't give a damn about the petty details. He'd spent seventy years ru

«Zabulon, do you speak for the Day Watch?» I asked.

I saw a brief flicker of doubt in the Dark Magician's eyes.

What was going on? Why had Zabulon left our headquarters, abandoning the opportunity to track down an unknown magician of monstrous power and enlist him in the Day Watch? You didn't just abandon an opportunity like that, not even for a girl-vampire and a kid with potentially great powers. Why was Zabulon determined to go head to head?

And why on earth was he so reluctant—I could sense it, there was no doubt about it!—to speak in the name of the Day Watch?

«I speak as a private individual,» said Zabulon.

«Then we have a few little personal disagreements,» I answered.

«Yes.»

He didn't want to involve the two Watches. Right now we were just Others. We might be on duty, we might be on official assignments, but Zabulon preferred not to raise the conflict to the level of an official confrontation. Why? Was he so very confident of his own powers, or was he afraid the boss might turn up?

I didn't understand a thing.

And the most important question of all was why he'd left our headquarters and abandoned the hunt for the sorcerer who'd put the curse on Svetlana. The Dark Ones had insisted that the sorcerer must be handed over to them. Why would he abandon that claim so easily?

What did Zabulon know that we didn't?

«You're pitiful…« the Dark Magician began. But before he could finish, the hostage made his move.

I heard Bear's puzzled growl of confusion and looked around.

After playing the part of a hostage in the vampire's clutches for the last half hour, Egor was dissolving, disappearing.

The kid was withdrawing deeper into the Twilight.

The vampire squeezed her arms together in an attempt to keep hold of him or kill him. The sweeping movement of the clawed hand was swift, but it met no living flesh. The vampire struck herself under her left breast, in the heart.

What a pity she wasn't alive!

Like a snowdrift suddenly springing into life, Bear pounced, streaking through the empty air where Egor had just been standing and felling the vampire. The twitching body was completely covered by his massive carcass, with just one clawed hand protruding from under his shaggy side and twitching spasmodically.

In the same instant Ilya raised the wand. The lilac glow dimmed slightly, and then the wand exploded into a column of white flame. The field agent looked as if he were holding a beam of light torn out of the lamp of a lighthouse. It was blinding; I could almost feel its weight. With a visible effort, Ilya swung his arms, scraping the gray sky with a beam of light brighter than any seen in Moscow since the war, and swung the gigantic club down on Zabulon's head.

The Dark Magician screamed.

He fell, pi

I jumped back as the tail almost caught me. The fiery cobra coiled itself into a ball and fell on Zabulon, rapidly winding the coils of its body around his head. And on the far side of the blazing coils there were three shadows thrashing away at each other, their rapid movements blurred into dim streaks. I hadn't noticed when Tiger Cub leapt on the witch and the warlock.

Ilya laughed quietly and took another wand out of his belt. This one was less bright—he must have charged it himself.

Had he been carrying a weapon designed personally for Zabulon, then? Had the boss already known our enemy?

I looked around the roof. At first glance, everything was under control. Bear was lying on the girl-vampire, pounding away with his paws, with occasional muffled sounds emerging from under his body. Tiger Cub was dealing with the two Day Watch agents, and it didn't look as if she needed any help. The white cobra was throttling Zabulon.

We were left with nothing to do. Ilya was watching the struggle, holding the wand at the ready, evidently trying to decide which tussle to throw himself into. Semyon had never taken any interest in the Day Watch agents and Zabulon, and now he'd lost all interest in the vampire and was wandering along the edge of the roof, looking down. Was he worried about new reinforcements for the Dark Side?

And I stood there like an idiot, holding the useless pistol in my hands…

The shadow sprang to my feet at the first attempt. I stepped into it, feeling the searing chill. Not the chill that humans know, not the chill that every Other knows—this was the chill of the deep Twilight. Here there was no wind; here the snow and ice under our feet had disappeared. Here there was no blue moss. The space was entirely filled with mist, thick, glutinous, and lumpy. If mist can be compared with milk, then this was curdled milk.

My friends and foes had all alike been transformed into vague shadows that were barely moving. Only the fiery cobra fighting with Zabulon was still as swift and scintillating as ever—that battle was being fought at every level of the Twilight. Thinking about the amount of energy that must have been transferred to that magic wand made me feel dizzy.